Via The Economist:
AMERICA carried out 39 executions last year. This puts the country in some unsavoury international company; only China, Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia put more people to death (albeit by a fairly large margin in China and Iran). Our colleagues over at Graphic Detail have plotted these executions on a rather grim chart.
For all the public hand-wringing over the death penalty, the number of places that carry it out and the number of people killed are rising. Amnesty reckons that 23,392 people are living under death sentences worldwide for crimes including treason, embezzlement and adultery.
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